About Obama, the cultural conservative by Ta-Nehisi Coates, blog of The Atlantic, 11 May 2010 — I don’t get the nuances of this. But if Obama were Republican, would Coates would declare him inauthentic?

Big news, if true: “Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say”, New York Times, 13 May 2010 — Based on analysis of tape released Wednesday. Note that experts said the 5,000 bpd estimate was little more than a guess.

“The Last Pop Star – Lady Gaga is simultaneously embodying and eviscerating Pop“, James Parker, The Atlantic, June 2010 — Current pop and rock remind me of late Weimar society, as seen in the musical Cabaret (Wikipedia). Decadent, unhinged from its history and values. Allan Bloom: “Decent people became used to hearing things about which they would have in the past been horrified to think, and which would not have been allowed public expression. An extreme outcome in the struggle between Right and Left in Weimar was inevitable.”

I was interviewed on Al Jazeera TV yesterday, for a report titled “China’s Empty City.” It centered on Ordos, Inner Mongolia, where a whole new city, constructed along central planning lines by the Chinese government, has been completed but stands entirely empty. The reporters at Al Jazeera originally approached me because of my recent blog post on “China’s Quality of GDP.” It’s one thing to write about massive state-sponsored construction projects that achieve GDP growth targets without necessarily creating any real value, but a couple of TV images can be worth a thousand words in illustrating the point. You can view the report by clicking here.

It’s worth noting, as the report says, that despite the fact nobody lives there, virtually all of Ordos’ new apartment complexes are sold out — precisely what I was talking about in “China’s Real Estate Riddle.”